Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

In hard times, vigilance a valuable crime deterrent

Neighborhood Watch

Christopher DeVargas

Howard Jenkins, block captain for his area’s Neighborhood Watch program, explains some of the key elements in keeping a safe neighborhood, Tues March 15th, 2011

Neighborhood Watch

A Neighborhood Watch sign is posted at the entrance to a gated community to show their concern in keeping a safe neighborhood, Tues March 15th, 2011 Launch slideshow »

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As new homes multiplied in the desert during Las Vegas’ building boom, signs bearing anti-bandit symbols began popping up in the young neighborhoods.

“Our neighbors are watching over one another’s family members and property and they have been trained to report suspicious activity,” the Neighborhood Watch signs declare.

In a city not known for its sense of community, a peculiar thing had happened: Neighbors banded together to prevent crime.

“When all the growth was out of control, our Neighborhood Watch programs exploded,” said Kathy Perkins, crime prevention specialist at Metro Police’s Northwest Area Command.

Then the economy flat-lined. Construction ebbed. People moved away. The housing market faltered, eventually making Las Vegas the foreclosure capital of the nation.

In turn, the once-robust Neighborhood Watch programs in the northwest valley fell prey to an economy gone sour: Less consistency in a neighborhood led to less participation in the volunteer effort to keep crime away.

“When you have the large foreclosures in the neighborhood, you have your block captains moving out of that neighborhood,” said Metro Capt. Christopher Jones of the Northwest Area Command, home to about 330,000 residents. “All of those things that are in place that would tend to help prevent crime start to break down.”

The program expanded from about 400 block captains nine years ago to 864 during the building boom’s peak, Perkins said. Now, the number in the northwest valley hovers around 720 block captains, many of whom are 30 to 55 years old and raising families, according to a recent analysis by the area command.

Police in the northwest valley, which includes one of the highest foreclosure ZIP codes in the area, have been contacting block captains since February to gauge where the program stands and see if participation levels correlate with slight crime increases in certain areas.

“Anytime our community experiences drastic change, we have to experience that with them,” Perkins said, explaining the rationale behind the assessment.

Police in Henderson and North Las Vegas, however, said their Neighborhood Watch programs are stable, despite more challenges posed by keeping an eye on vacant houses.

In fact, the most recent neighborhood to join the program in North Las Vegas has a 20 percent vacancy rate, police spokeswoman Chrissie Coon said. She added that program coordinators have noticed more block captain changes, reflecting movement within neighborhoods since the recession.

In the northwest valley, police are examining burglaries, which have increased by 4.5 percent this year compared with 2010, to see if the crimes are occurring in neighborhoods either without Neighborhood Watch programs or with declining participation, Jones said.

The data have not been completely gathered, but Jones said the theory holds true so far: Areas without Neighborhood Watch programs have more crime.

Historically, less than 10 percent of victim letters — crime prevention information sent to single-family homes struck by a property crime — have gone to areas with established Neighborhood Watches, Perkins said.

Of the 27 burglary victim letters sent one week this month, only one went to a Neighborhood Watch community, she said.

As the number of vacant houses increased, more break-ins occurred at empty homes, mostly by drug users seeking items, cabinets or fixtures they can sell, Jones said.

That’s why Neighborhood Watch programs are so important in bad economic times, he said. For instance, Metro has busted a surge of marijuana grow houses across the valley, often thanks to tips from neighbors.

“People who commit property crimes and break into houses … they rely on operating where there are no witnesses,” Jones said. “They feel comfortable operating where nobody’s watching or they feel nobody’s watching.”

At its core, that’s what the national volunteer program is all about.

“It’s neighbors knowing neighbors and watching out for each other,” said Howard Jenkins, a Neighborhood Watch block captain since July 2005.

As a block captain, he simply keeps a watchful eye over homes on his street and acts as the conduit between police and his neighbors.

On a recent afternoon, Jenkins surveyed his street, paying special attention to two homes — one whose occupants are in Hawaii and another that’s empty for part of the year.

Click to enlarge photo

Howard Jenkins, block captain for his area's Neighborhood Watch program, explains some of the key elements in keeping a safe neighborhood, Tues March 15th, 2011

Jenkins, who helps other neighborhoods set up programs, tells residents it takes three ingredients for a crime to occur: the ability, the motivation and the opportunity, the last of which can be prevented by employing safe practices and reporting suspicious activity.

“We teach in Neighborhood Watch that we want you to take the opportunity in your house and neighborhood and take it somewhere else,” he said.

Jenkins and his wife, Linda, who are Metro volunteers, have been calling the northwest valley block captains for program assessment.

Although most remain enthusiastic about the program, a few have said it’s tougher these days, given the vacant houses and transient nature of residents.

“Some block captains literally gave up and said, ‘I can’t get my neighbors interested. I’ve got renters,’ ” Jenkins said.

That mind-set contradicts what Chris Tutko, director of Neighborhood Watch-USAonWatch, has seen nationally, especially in the Midwest where “people take care of everyone else,” he said.

“I think Neighborhood Watch is probably at least as popular if not a little more popular given the economic conditions we have,” he said.

Even when the Las Vegas economy was vibrant, Jones said neighborhoods sometimes struggled to build a sense of community. Unlike other parts of the country, there typically aren’t generations of families living in a particular area, he said.

“Regardless of if it’s a sense of community or not, people know what is normal within the area they live,” he said, referring to the philosophy behind Neighborhood Watch.

At the height of the recession, police stopped sending newsletters to Neighborhood Watch programs to save money, Perkins said. They also reined in outreach efforts because they realized residents were preoccupied with greater financial concerns.

“People’s focus shifted from the quality of life in their neighborhood to being able to stay in the neighborhood,” she said.

Officials hope to recruit more volunteers by spreading awareness about areas that could benefit from Neighborhood Watch programs. They also are building an email database to re-energize communication between police and participants.

“It does take time, and it does take commitment,” Jones said. “But if everyone shoulders just a little bit of that burden, then it makes it a lot easier, and we see the results.”

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